1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system network communication, and more particularly to a system and method for communicating system management information during network interface teaming.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems often interact with each other and with peripherals through networks to communicate or otherwise process information. For instance, network interface cards (NICs) format information for communication over wireline or wireless local area networks (LANs) having a client-server architecture. Typically, multiple clients, each having at least one NIC, interface with a single server having multiple NICs. Often, multiple servers and switches are used in complex networks to manage communication of large amounts of information at rapid speeds. In such networks, NICs are sometimes “teamed” to better share a network's communication with a server information handling system across the teamed NICs. During teaming, a switch interfaced with multiple NICs of the server information handling system switches network traffic across the NICs with a common network address so that the network traffic load is more evenly shared between the NICs. The NICs are shared between the operating system through a PCI or other internal bus. Network communication is often less efficient without the use of teaming since congestion at a NIC may occur while other NICs are underutilized, resulting in delays of processing information from the congested NIC by the processor of the information handling system server.
One goal of network design is to have server information handling systems that are as robust as feasible in order to avoid network outages. A problem considered in the design of robust server information handling systems is that such systems are often placed in less accessible locations, such as data centers, that make the servicing and repair of server information handling systems more difficult. To address this problem, server information handling systems are often built with a separate management processor, such as a BMC or a RAC, which is able to manage physical components even when the server information handling system central processing unit (CPU) is not operating. For instance, a BMC communicates with the cooling system to monitor environmental conditions and with the BIOS to restart the system, such as in case of a CPU hangup. Remote access to the management processor is typically supported through a single NIC to allow a remote client to send commands to the management processor over the network, such as with the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) standard, and through a secondary bus of the information handling system, such as a SMBus. However, when NIC teaming is used, traffic to the management processor is often lost since the switch divides traffic between the NICs so that IPMI traffic can go to a NIC that is not interfaced with the management processor by the secondary bus. To avoid the loss of IPMI management traffic, users are usually warned that teaming and IPMI communication are not compatible so that the user may disable teaming before sending IPMI information.